


All Your Words, So Clean

by runawaynun



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alliances, Gen, Women In Power, season 4 speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 20:25:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19363609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runawaynun/pseuds/runawaynun
Summary: Avasarala and Drummer have a drink, a conversation and maybe an alliance.





	All Your Words, So Clean

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to sugarfey for looking at drafts and for the encouragement.

The dive bar that Drummer had finally found near her accommodations in the Martian capital fell silent. Her back stiffened, ready to defend herself, but she figured it was local trouble and no one would bother her as long she had script.

She heard the whisper of silk as someone sat on the stool next to her at the bar. "I'll have what she's having," a familiar voice said and she nearly choked on her drink. 

Drummer tried not to let her shock show on her face, but judging by the smirk on Chrisjen Avasarala's face, she failed. The Martian bartender looked at Drummer as if she would have the answer as to why the Secretary General of the United Nations had sullied his bar. Drummer just shrugged and turned back to her drink. "What you want?" Drummer asked.

Avasarala accepted her drink with a nod. "Where the fuck is Fred Johnson?"

"Fred too busy to come, so he send me now." Which was true. Fred was busy establishing Medina, formerly known as the Behemoth, as the transport hub between galaxies. With all the bad memories of what happened there and the scar across her lower back that twinged every time she thought about that _wrong_ space, Drummer almost accepted the fact Fred sent her to deal the Inners. Almost. "I'm sure he come in time to carve up the universe with you Inners."

Avasarala made a non-committal noise as she took a sip of her drink. She grimaced. "This is fucking awful."

"No one keeping you here. Can leave."

"Good idea." Avasarala reached out and laid one perfectly manicured hand on Drummer's upper arm. "Camina -- "

"Drummer," she spat as she shrugged off Avasarala's hand.

"-- come to the UN Embassy. Have a drink with me that doesn't taste like someone wrung out a dirty gym sock."

Fred had told her to play nice, and if she got some free booze out of it, Drummer guessed it would be a reward for her effort. "Fine." She got the attention of the bartender. "She paying," Drummer said, pointing toward Avasarala.

Avasarala looked pointedly at one of her security detail who went to pay the bill. Without looking back at Drummer, she started to make her way out of the bar. " _Pagal tumang_ ," Drummer grumbled under her breath and followed the back of Avasarala's scarlet sari.

*

Leave it to the Earthers to have a completely ornamental garden outside of their Embassy. Drummer could see it from the windows of Avasarala's temporary living quarters. She remained standing, hands behind her back as Avasarala padded around the room, looking for something, while pulling the heavy red-stone earrings from her ears.

"Ah!" Avasarala exclaimed, retrieving a bottle from the recesses of a desk drawer. The desk was old and looked made of wood. The fact that someone had used the time, energy and fuel to transport something as useless as a desk from Earth to Mars, it made Drummer think about the food and water rationing that was her every day life.

"My predecessor was a fucking bobble head but he had excellent taste in liquor." Avasarala grabbed two glasses and presented the bottle with a flourish. "Whiskey. All the way from the remnants of the British Islands." She poured a healthy measure in both glasses. "Sit, please."

Drummer sat on the couch that had decent a line of sight of the exits. Old habits died hard. Avasarala sat in the armchair perpendicular to the couch and gave Drummer a glass. " _Yam seng_ I believe is the appropriate phrase?"

" _Yam seng_ ," Drummer replied flatly. The Earther whiskey tasted different from fungus-based alcohol she was used to. But it burned just the same and that was good enough.

Avasarala moved to pour more into Drummer's glass. She placed her hand over it. "Naomi told me about you."

Avasarala leaned back into her chair and took a drink. "Oh? You still correspond with Ms. Nagata even though she's with Holden on New Terra?"

Her words and demeanor made it seem like she was engaging in small talk, but Drummer knew better. Both Fred and Naomi had warned her that nothing was simple with Avasarala. She had to admit she was formidable -- the old woman had found Drummer's softest spot -- Naomi. She hated that she worried about Naomi as she was weeks out of communication range and orbiting an unexplored planet. Compounding the fear was that she was there with Holden who had never met a reckless action he didn't take. She received Naomi's last message as she left Tycho and now that she was on Mars, the lag between missives would take months.

Drummer kept her face blank and decided to steer the conversation to a more familiar and less personal topic. "Naomi and Holden are on Ilus."

Avasarala waved her hand dismissively. "Does it matter what we call the planet?"

Drummer glared at her. "I know you're not that stupid. Or would it be fine for me to say that your home is Bombay?"

Avasarala's eyes narrowed. Drummer smirked and finished her drink. She was not some unprepared underling dazzled by Earth's richness nor was she ignorant of its history. As much as she didn't want to be here, she had prepared for what she would encounter. She hated the Inners' games, hated having to pretend to be like them, just to get the few crumbs they would throw at the Belt. But the Belt needed those crumbs for now.

Avasarala set her glass down with a thud. "Enough bullshit. You need me as an ally."

"I do, do I?"

"We both know that Fred Johnson's time as the head of the OPA is limited."

"Really. Why? You going to kill him?"

"Don't be fucking ridiculous. Why would I risk bringing in a faction of the OPA ready to throw rocks Earth?"

"Never stopped the UN before." 

"I've never been in charge of the UN before. And you know just as well as I do that large sections of the Belt will never follow a leader from Earth."

"So what do you want me to do? Babysit Fred?" Drummer had a feeling that Avasarala was going to ask something much more ambitious. She grabbed the bottle of whiskey and poured some into her glass. She tipped the bottle towards Avasarala, and Avasarala nodded her assent.

Avasarala leaned forward, folded her hands in her lap and looked directly at Drummer. The mask of the smiling hostess slipped away. "You should be ready, Camina."

Drummer scoffed. "No."

"I'd be able to offer you covert support."

"Some great leader of the free Belt I'd be!" Drummer's hands made a Belter motion of derision. "Propped up by the UN. Avasarala's puppet. The woman who tortured our _beratnas_ on Luna. No. I believe the 'proper phrase' is go fuck yourself."

"You're hardly the first person to tell me that. And I'll tell you what I told the last person: I am not your enemy. What humanity is facing goes far beyond conflicts between Earth, Mars and the Belt. What are the chances we survive whatever the hell the protomolecule is if we don't work together?" 

The two women sat in silence for a few minutes. Drummer didn't want to think about having to take Fred's place, having to deal with people like the woman in front of her every single day. But. "I would appreciate a way to contact you. If the worst comes to happen. To warn you," Drummer gritted out.

Avasarala nodded and made her way to the wooden desk. She wrote something on a white scrap. "Here. This is a channel that will connect you only to me and is anonymous, with no connection to the UN."

She handed it to Drummer. Drummer looked at the string of numbers and felt the scrap. "Paper?" she asked, eyebrow raised.

"Don't have to worry that some other party will intercept it."

"And if this doesn't work?"

"Let Holden know." Avasarala rolled her eyes. "I'm sure he'll let the entire fucking universe know that something is wrong."

Drummer almost smiled. "I'm sure he will." She finished her drink. "According to the schedule, I will officially meet you for the first time in six hours. I'm sure you need to sleep before dealing with the Martians and my fierce negotiation skills."

"Of course." Avasarala's lips quirked. As Drummer made her way to the door, she called after her. "Camina - "

"Drummer."

" - You fuck me over, you fuck Earth over, you will be my guest on Luna. Remember that."

"You kill my Belters, _Chrisjen_ , I may not pay so much attention to what all the factions of the OPA are planning, _sasa ke_?"

Avasarala nodded, picking up a glass off the table in a salute to Drummer.

Drummer left the UN embassy, slightly confused but proud of herself. She was fairly sure that she had made a tenuous alliance and had forced the old woman to make concessions at the same time. She yawned and looked upwards on the Martian street. The paper in the sleeve of her coverall felt like it was burning against her skin. "You better hurry up, Fred. I'm already sick of playing these Inner games."


End file.
